A Midflight Vampire's Tale by Linda Ling

Author:Linda Ling [Ling, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

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Pei Ling and I had lived together for a decent period of time before we parted—about fifty years. A good duration to know someone inside out.

I’ll never forget my first meeting with her. I was hunting outside Beijing. So was she. When we saw each other, we were like two tigers eyeing the same doe for food. Well, a cranky and ancient tiger, and a bushy-tailed one who had no idea what she was doing. I demurred and allowed her to take the victim for herself, which won her over.

She was a new Hybrid, having survived the Purge. It’s what limits our numbers as Hybrids. Only one in ten humans who undergo the Change are able to survive the Purge. The rest suffer unspeakable pain and torment for a day or two before perishing. Hours, if they’re lucky. Something to do with the body’s immune system and rejection of vampiric blood. All those vampire writers got it completely wrong. Making another vampire is damned difficult and risky.

As for Pei Ling, her maker abandoned her, leaving her to fend for herself without teaching her how to survive. When I chanced upon her, she was a train wreck.

I later found out that she’d been only sixteen. Born during the decline of the Qing dynasty, she was the daughter of a Han-Chinese official, slated to marry into the royal family. Before that could happen, she caught the attention of a Hybrid, who stole her from her family, and Changed her. One moment, her life was laid out before her. The next, she had become a predator who couldn’t so much as blink in the light of day. She’d been transformed a mere month before her maker disappeared, leaving her to her own devices.

I took her under my wing, partly from loneliness, and partly to keep her safe and help her with the agonizing transition into her new life. Despite all that I’ve seen and the centuries I’ve endured, meeting a new, unprotected Hybrid is uncommon. Again, the Purge is to blame for this. If a human were lucky enough to survive, why, then their maker tended to be rather defensive of their vampire progeny. Pei Ling needed me, as much as I needed her at the time.

Thus, we lived together for decades, addressing each other as sisters. And we behaved as such. We even hunted together. Femme fatales, so to speak.

But it all ended just before the Boxer Rebellion. I wanted to depart for Europe and leave behind the chaos that China was descending into. She objected. There was a man. A human. She wanted to Change him. I would not let her. We fought for weeks about it. Then, I left on a ship bound for Europe. She stayed. I don’t know what happened to the man. There was a ninety percent chance he didn’t make it.

And I was right. He didn’t.

Naturally, it wasn’t the most pleasant of farewells.

Even now, a hundred years later, as I walked beside Pei Ling toward the riverside, I could feel the deep ravine between us.

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